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Why We Love the Church

Church
is out, spirituality is in. This is true outside Christians circles
but, shockingly, it is true within as well. Recent years have seen a
long succession of books talking of the revolution to come (or the
revolution underway) which will see Christians abandon the
institutional church in favor of expressions of the faith that are
supposedly more pure. Christians meeting together in Starbucks in twos
or threes, Christians meeting on park benches or around a backyard
swimming pool. This, say some, is a true, pure, biblical expression of
Christian community. It is in reaction to this kind of
misinterpretation of Scripture that Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck have
written, Why We Love the Church.

You may recognize DeYoung and Kluck as the men behind Why We’re Not Emergent, a book that won Christianity Today’s
2009 Book Award in the The Church/Pastoral Leadership category. In that
first book they showed why they, though apparently prime candidates to
follow along within the Emerging Church movement, had eschewed it in
favor of a more traditional expression of the faith. This book is a
follow-up, of sorts, offering the positive expression of what they
declared negatively in the first book. We know that they are not
Emergent and here we learn why they love the church. They follow the
same pattern, writing completely separate chapters. DeYoung’s chapters
are the more academic ones—providing the theological foundation.
Kluck’s chapters, on the other hand, are less formal and more
reflective. Both men are excellent writers who are adept at turning a
phrase, making this a book that is just plain enjoyable to read.

The question will be asked: Is this as good, as enjoyable a book as Why We’re Not Emergent.
I don’t think so; I don’t know that they quite recaptured the voice,
the perspective they spoke from in the first book. Somehow it seems
they were not able to duplicate the magic, the interplay between the
two authors, that marked Why We’re Not Emergent. Yet Why We Love the Church is still plenty good in its own right.

The book, they say, is written for four kinds of people: the
committed, the disgruntled, the waffling and the disconnected. For each
of these people there will be value in reading the book and reflecting
on the message it shares. When it comes to the disgruntled, the
waffling and the disconnected, they offer four reasons, or perhaps four
groups of reasons that people are disillusioned with the
church: the missiological (the church is simply not fulfilling her
God-given mission); the personal (the church is anti-women, anti-gay,
hypocritical, etc); the historical (the church as we know it is a
product of paganism, not Scripture); the theological (the church as an
organization, institution, hierarchy, etc is foreign to the Bible).
Throughout the book, DeYoung and Kluck respond to these people and
respond to these reasons, always looking to Scripture, always seeking
to provide a biblical understanding of who and what and why the church
is.

There are two great strengths in this book. The first is in offering
the biblical perspective on what God is doing through the church. The
authors show how the church is central to all that God is doing in the
world and prove well that without the church there is no Christianity.
They take the historic view that participating in the church is
normative for the Christian life—that under ordinary circumstances we
should not expect a person who deliberately remains outside the visible
church to be a true believer.

The second great strength is in responding to the tired but
all-too-common arguments against organized religion or
institutionalized church or whatever else people may wish to call it.
They offer lines like this—ones well worth pondering: “It’s more than a
little ironic that the same folks who want the church to ditch the
phoney, plastic persona and become a haven for broken, imperfect
sinners are ready to leave the church when she is broken, imperfect and
sinful.” They do not allow such people to glamorize the early church,
the New Testament church, as if she was a perfect, sinless expression
of the Christian faith (haven’t these people read 1 Corinthians or the
early chapters of Revelation?). They offer valuable responses to
disillusionment based on historical hubris, church buildings and
institutions and even the role of Christians in the Crusades—all of
those arguments that tend to be passed along but without much thought
and without ever verifying the claims. Just the response to these
arguments is worth the price of the book.

If there is a weak point in Why We Love the Church, it has
to be Chapter 6, titled “Snapshots.” Here Kluck offers brief interviews
with various churched people. Not only does the chapter feel a little
bit out of place, but it also focuses a lot of attention on Chuck
Colson who, through his efforts with Evangelicals and Catholics
Together, seeks to undermine much of what the church is. It is a
strange diversion in an otherwise excellent book.

I had expected this book to be written from a fully positive
perspective, which is to say it would be more proactive than
reactive—that it would explain why these men love the church without
reference to all of those who seem not to love her. Yet much
of the book is a response to Leonard Sweet and William Young and George
Barna and the other naysayers. In this way it did cement itself in my
mind as a true sequel to Why We’re Not Emergent; where the
first book reacted to the leaders of the emerging church, this one
responds equally to those who would lead the charge away from the
church altogether. Not surprisingly, some of the antagonists in the
first book make appearances here as well. And so, if you are eager to
read a response to this kind of reaction against the church or if you
are looking for an apologetic as to why you ought to love and value and
treasure the church, this is a book you will enjoy and a book that will
benefit you. Read this book and I am confident that you will come to a
deeper love, a deeper appreciation, of both Christ and his church.